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Geog 305: Geography of Sub-Saharan Afric…
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How about reviewing a book (or writing a paper) about Congo?
If you haven’t yet decided on a book to review for the course, you may want to consider one of the surprisingly large number of good and interesting books focusing on the Democratic Republic of Congo. The country’s history is replete with conflict and tragedy: in the late 19th century it was claimed by King Leopold of Belgium as his own personal property, and he ruled the territory with particular brutality, using the forced labor of local people to collect rubber and make himself very wealthy indeed (This period of the country’s history is superbly told by Adam Hochschild in his 1999 book King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa.)
From the moment it became independent in 1960 the country faced both internal conflict and external intervention. After an unsuccessful attempt by the mineral-rich southern province of Katanga to secede, the country’s leftward-leaning leader was killed and his government overthrown in a coup. The new leader, a military officer named Joseph Mobutu, was backed by the U.S., which saw the Congo as a strategically important place in the context of the Cold War (see the 2007 book Chief of Station: Fighting the Cold War in a Hot Zone, by Larry Devlin.)
Mobutu renamed the country Zaire and modestly changed his own name to Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga (“The all-powerful warrior who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, goes from conquest to conquest, leaving fire in his wake.”) Mobutu’s tyrannical rule and its disastrous consequences for the country are document in Michala Wrong’s In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu’s Congo (2000.)
In the wake of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, hundreds of thousands of refugees fled Rwanda into Zaire, bringing instability and conflict with them. The conflict resulted in the overthrow of Mobutu in 1997 by Rwandan-backed forces, and the country’s named was changed to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Since then, conflict has continued to devastate the country, and by some estimates more than 5 million people have lost their lives as a direct or indirect result of the conflict.
During the years of conflict, what meager infrastructure the Belgian colonists had built in Congo deteriorated: roads fell into disrepair, rail lines into disuse, and buildings degenerated into rubble. The results of this are documented by Tim Butcher, who undertook the daunting task of crossing DRC on a motorcycle and surprisingly lived to tell the tale in his 2008 book Blood River: The Terrifying Journey through the World’s Most Dangerous Country.
These are just a few of the good books written about the DRC; how about tackling one of them?
Book Reviews, Fall 2011
As I mentioned in yesterday’s class, part of your grade for the course will come from your review of a work on non-fiction dealing with Sub-Saharan Africa. I strongly encourage you to pick a book that you think you will find interesting, and it may also be a good idea to choose something that is related to the subject of your research paper. Before you begin the review, please check with me to make your that your selection is acceptable. If it is, I will post your name and the book title on the book review page of this site, so that everyone in the class knowns what everyone else is reading.
Mugabe and the White African
This looks as though it will be an interesting documentary. Unfortunately, the course will be over by the time it is broadcast but you may wish to watch it anyway. It will be shown on the PBS program POV on July 26, and will be available for viewing online from July 27 until October 25, 2011.
Watch the full episode. See more POV.
White King, Red Rubber, Black Death
Today in class we watched the film White King, Red Rubber, Black Death . There wasn’t time in class to discuss the film, or the important issues it raises. So let’s have some of that conversation here, between now and our next class meeting, when I also want to talk about what has happened in the Congo (now the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC) since the period covered in the documentary.
The film tells much of the story that Adam Hochschild writes about in his 1997 book King Leopold’s Ghost: A story of greed, terror, and heroism in colonial Africa. I highly recommend the book; if you haven’t read it, at least look at some of the reviews of it (like this one).
On the current situation in DRC, take a look at the NYT coverage (or lack of it) from the country. Do the same with coverage on Al Jazeera, BBC, and South Africa’s Mail and Guardian. Also look at general information sites such as BBC’s Country Profile of DRC.
I’ll add to this post over the next few days, but please feel free to post your thoughts right away.
Keep an eye also on the “New and Notable” column on the right side of this page; I post links there to items of interested related to our discussions, and I’ll look out particularly for interesting pieces on the Congo.
Guest lecture and discussion with Ambassador Tony Leon, South African Ambassador to Argentina.
Online via online audio connection, Combs 003, Wednesday July 6, 1.30 – 2.15 pm.
One Wednesday July 6, Ambassador Tony Leon will speak to and answer questions students in the summer session course ‘Geography of Sub-Saharan Africa,’ (Geog 305) taught by Dr. Donald N. Rallis, Associate Professor of Geography at UMW. This particular meeting of the class is open to all members of the UMW community and to members of the public.
Tony Leon is an accomplished South African politician, author, and diplomat. He began his career with a degree in law from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, and went on to serve as a faculty member in the School of Law at the University.
His career in public office began as a Johannesburg City Councilor, and in 1989 he was elected as a Progressive Party Member of Parliament for Houghton (a district previously represented by the anti-apartheid icon Helen Suzman.)
From 1990 to 1994, the crucial period of transition of South Africa’s transition from apartheid to democracy, Tony Leon served as chair of his party’s Bill of Rights Commission. He was also as a delegate to the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA,) central to the negotiations that led to establishment of a democratic South Africa in 1994.
From 1994 until his retirement from Parliament in 2007, he served as leader of the Democratic Alliance (successor to the Progressive Party,) and also as Leader of the Official Opposition in Parliament. He become known as an outspoken opponent of those policies of the governing party, the ANC, with which he and his party disagreed, among these the government’s failure to deal adequately with the problems of poverty, unemployment and the country’s HIV epidemic.
Tony Leon retired from Parliament in 2007, and was succeeded as DA leader by Helen Zille. In late 2007, he served a Fellow at the Institute of Government at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. In 2008, he published his second book, On the Contrary, described by The Economist as ‘an important record of South Africa’s young democracy, witnessed from the other side of the fence.’ His talk will focus on this part of his career, although he will answer questions on any other topics audience members wish to raise.
In 2009, Tony Leon was appointed by President Jacob Zuma to serve as South Africa’s Ambassador to Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay, the position he currently holds.
Tony Leon is no stranger to the University of Mary Washington, having delivered a guest presentation on campus in 2007.
Tony Leon’s talk is part of the course the Geography of Sub-Saharan Africa (Geog 305) taught by Dr. Donald N. Rallis of the UMW Department of Geography. The Ambassador will join the class via internet connection from his office in Buenos Aires. The lecture takes place as part of the initial stages of UMW’s recently launched Online Learning Initiative, a project to develop at least six model courses in on online format consistent with the “distinctive UMW experience” and an “institutional culture that is student-centered, collaborative, and responsive to students’ needs and expectations.” Dr. Rallis is one of six faculty members to receive grants to develop such a course during the 2011-12 academic year. The event is also part of Dr. Rallis’s online effort to expand awareness of the connections between current events and geography.
See also:
‘The Other Side of the Fence.’ The Economist, August 14, 2008
‘Tony Leon.’ Who’s Who Southern Africa
Photos from S. Africa & Swaziland by Helen Mongan-Rallis
Rural house in Kwa Zulu Natal
My sister Helen has posted some photographs from her current to South Africa online. I asked her if she could include some captions with my students in mind, to give you some idea of the place, context, and significance of the pictures.
The photographs, although on Facebook, are accessible to everyone, but you won’t be able to comment on them there. So please post any comments, observations, and questions here.
“An African Adventure, and a Revelation”
“TAKE an American student and an American teacher who have never been near Africa before, lead them on a crazed “win a trip” journey through five particularly wretched countries, and what do you get?” So begins Nicholas Kristof’s latest piece in the New York Times.
It’s a really interesting, perceptive, and optimistic piece, all the more so because Kristof has two interesting traveling companions. For the past few years, he has run a “Win-a-Trip” contest, where he takes a student with him on a reporting trip to the developing world. This year he has also taken someone from what he terms “the over 60 crowd.” Neither has been to Africa before, and some of their observations are also in the article.
Read it; I think you will find some interesting ideas and insights in it, most notably its optimistic tone on the subject of Africa’s future.
If you don’t follow Kristof’s op-eds in the New York Times, you really should. In my opinion, he is currently the best journalist reporting on Africa, and on the developing world, for a major news organization. He is perceptive, courageous, and he writes well. He also makes a point of visiting and writing about places that are seldom deemed newsworthy (His current piece was written in Ougadougou.)
Nicholas Kristof is also a prolific Tweeter, it’s worth following him on Twitter (@NickKristof).
We’ll talk about his article in class, but meanwhile please post thoughts and comments here.
Ghosts of Rwanda
In class today, we watched the PBS Frontline video Ghosts of Rwanda (click on the title for a link to the informative PBS companion site to the video.
The video is long, so we didn’t get a chance to discuss it afterwards. We will talk about it on Tuesday, but in the mean time let’s talk about it here. What were you reactions to the video, and to the central themes it focuses on?
The other PBS video on Rwanda I recommended to you is Valentina’s Nightmare, made by journalist Fergal Keene shortly after the genocide. Keene also wrote a book on the subject at about the same time, Season of Blood.
Welcome to Geog 305, Second Summer Session 2011
A hearty welcome to all who have signed up for Geog 305, the Geography of Sub-Saharan Africa, in the Second Summer session of 2011. I hope that you will find the course enjoyable, informative, and useful, and that by the end of the course you will feel that you know a little more about Sub Saharan Africa, and the ways in which a geographic perspective can help you understand the region better.
A word about this website. This is the place where you should be able to find out much of you need to know about the administrative and logistical aspects of the course. There are several parts to the site, all listed below the photograph at the top of this page. I highly recommend that you look through each of these sections as soon as possible to familiarize yourself with both this site and also the way the course is organized.
Although all sections of this site are important, I want to draw your attention to several in particular. The first is the Course Calendar. Click on the calendar link above, and you will be taken to a Google Calendar listing all class periods for the semester. Click on any day’s class, and a pop-up box will open, listing the readings that you need to complete in preparation for that day’s class. (Click on the “Details” link the the box and you will see a more legible version of this information.) Please be sure to complete all required readings and assignments before class (and that includes our first meeting on Monday June 20.) Note also that one of the main reasons for having the readings on a website rather than a printed syllabus is that I can (and will) change them as the course progresses (for example, if I come across a news story related to a region we are discussing in class, I may well add it to the reading list.) So please check the Course Calendar regularly.
There is one other very important online component of the course that is not on this site, and that is the Blackboard site. We will make use of it mainly for scanned readings (there is no textbook as such in this course) and assignments (you will complete several of these,) and I will also use Blackboard to record your grades. Please check your grades regularly to make sure that they have been entered correctly.
A Special Word about the Summer Session
Summer session classes are a little strange, and very deceptive. They take place against the backdrop of the laid-back environment of a largely deserted campus in summer. Classes are generally smaller than they would be during the regular semester, and tend to be more informal. This also belies the fact that summer courses are very tough, and involve a great deal more work each day than their Fall or Spring counterparts.
Each day’s class is roughly the equivalent of a week’s worth of classes during the regular semester. This means that you will have to budget at least 2-3 hours per day to keep with the readings and assignments in this course (and most other summer courses.) It also means that if you fall behind in your work, even by a day, you will find it very difficult indeed to catch up. So be warned, and be prepared!
I encourage you to make use of the contact information listed on this site to ask questions and raise any issues related to the course. I hope that you will always feel free to ask questions in class, but I also encourage you to post questions or issues for discussion on this site (This page of the site serves primarily as a blog; I will post information and ideas here, and I hope you will do the same.)
If you prefer to contact me personally or privately, you may do so by stopping by my office during my office hours, or by sending me an e-mail. Please bear in mind that I get a lot of email. So always be sure to include a subject in the subject line of the e-mail, and also your course number (Geog 305.)
I look forward to exploring the world with you over the next few weeks!
Best,
Donald N Rallis
Associate Professor